Random Facts
| "We must have law enforcement authorities address the issue because if we do not, prevention, education, and treatment messages will not work very well. But having said that, I also believe that we have created an American gulag."
Source:
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, Ret.), Director, ONDCP, Keynote Address, Opening Plenary Session, National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, September 19, 1996, Washington, DC.
http://www.nida.nih.gov/MeetSum/CODA/Keynote2.html
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| (marijuana scheduling) Despite its medical value, cannabis (marijuana) remains in Schedule I of the 1970 Controlled Substance Act where it is categorized as "(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."
Source:
The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, 21 U.S.C. §§ 812 et seq. http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/csa/812.htm |
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Medicinal Cannabis - Data
(2005) "Determining exactly how many patients use medical marijuana with state approval is difficult. According to a 2002 study published in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, an estimated 30,000 California patients and another 5,000 patients in eight other states possessed a physician’s recommendations to use cannabis medically.67 More recent estimates are much higher. The New England Journal of Medicine reported in August 2005, for example, that an estimated 115,000 people have obtained marijuana recommendations from doctors in the states with programs.68
"Although 115,000 people may be approved medical marijuana users, the number of patients who have actually registered is much lower. A July 2005 CRS telephone survey of the state programs revealed a total of 14,758 registered medical marijuana users in eight states.69 (Maine and Washington do not maintain state registries, and Rhode Island, New Mexico, and Michigan had not yet passed their laws.) This number vastly understates the number of medical marijuana users, however, because California’s state registry was in pilot status, with only 70 patients so far registered."
Source:
Eddy, Mark, "Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: March 31, 2009), p. 19.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33211.pdf
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| (2004) "Mothers in state prison (58%) were more likely than fathers (49%) to report having a family member who had also been incarcerated (table 11). Parents in state prison most commonly reported a brother (34%), followed by a father (19%). Among mothers in state prison, 13% reported a sister and 8% reported a spouse. Six percent of fathers reported having a sister who had also been incarcerated; 2%, a spouse.
"While growing up, 40% of parents in state prison reported living in a household that received public assistance, 14% reported living in a foster home, agency, or institution at some time during their youth, and 43% reported living with both parents most of the time (appendix table 11). Mothers (17%) held in state prison were more likely than fathers (14%) to report living in a foster home, agency, or institution at some time during their youth. Parents in federal prison reported lower percentages of growing up in a household that received public assistance (31%) or living in a foster home, agency, or institution (7%). These characteristics varied little by gender for parents held in federal prison.
"More than a third (34%) of parents in state prison reported that during their youth, their parents or guardians had abused alcohol or drugs. Mothers in state prison (43%) were more likely than fathers (33%) to have had this experience. Fewer parents (27%) in federal prison reported having a parent or a guardian who had abused alcohol or drugs."
Source:
Glaze, Lauren E. and Maruschak, Laura M., "Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jan. 2009), NCJ222984, p. 7.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf
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| (2005 - The Netherlands) "In 2005, the prevalence of last year cannabis use was about 2.5 times higher among men than women (7.8% as against 3.1%). This male-female ratio was marginally smaller in previous years (almost 2). Apparently the gender gap is not narrowing."
Source:
Trimbos Institute, "Drug Situation 2006 The Netherlands by the Reitox National Focal Point: Report to the EMCDDA" (Utrecht, Netherlands: Trimbos-Instuut, 2007), p. 26.
http://www.a-klinikka.fi/ajankohtaista/paihdetiedotusseminaari07/National%20Report%20Netherlands%202006%20met%20omslag_190%20pages.pdf |
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| Financial Information
"Total assets, which present as of a specific time the amounts of future economic benefits owned or managed by the AFF/SADF, increased in FY 2008 to $3,120.7 million from $3,056.5 million in FY 2007, an increase of 2.1 percent. If seized assets, which are not yet owned by the government, are backed out, the adjusted assets of the Fund increased to $1,892.2 million in FY 2008 from $1,790.6 million in FY 2007, an increase of 5.7 percent. This is attributable to an increase in forfeited assets in FY 2008 from FY 2007, indicating a strong current and future potential stream of assets flowing into the AFF. The AFF/SADF fund balances with the U.S. Treasury were lower in FY 2008 than FY 2007."
Source:
Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, US Dept. of Justice, "Assets Forfeiture Fund and Seized Asset Deposit Fund Annual Financial Statement Fiscal Year 2008" (Audit Report 09-19, March 2009), p. 6.
http://www.justice.gov/jmd/afp/01programaudit/fy2008/fy2008_afs_report.pdf
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| "Eighty five percent of the BPG [Berkeley Patients Group] sample reported that cannabis has much less adverse side effects than their prescription medications. Additionally, the top two reasons listed by participants as reasons for substituting cannabis for one of the substances previously mentioned were less adverse side effects from cannabis (65%) and better symptom management from cannabis (57.4%).
"Conclusion
"The substitution of one psychoactive substance for another with the goal of reducing negative outcomes can be included within the framework of harm reduction. Medical cannabis patients have been engaging in substitution by using cannabis as an alternative to alcohol, prescription and illicit drugs."
Source:
Reiman, Amanda, "Cannabis as a Substitute for Alcohol and Other Drugs," Harm Reduction Journal (London, United Kingdom: December 2009).
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/pdf/1477-7517-6-35.pdf
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| In a law review article, Colorado Judge Morris B. Hoffman writes, "Reductions in recidivism are so small that if they exist at all they are statistically meaningless. Net-widening is so large that, even if drug courts truly were effective in reducing recidivism, more drug defendants would continue to jam our prisons than ever before."
Source:
District Judge Morris B. Hoffman, Second Judicial District (Denver), State of Colorado, "The Drug Court Scandal", North Carolina Law Review (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Law Review Association, June 2000), Vol. 78, No. 5, p. 1533-4. |
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| "The major existing change in the legal framework, and probably the one most spoken of by politicians, media and others, are the modifications to the Narcotic Drug Act. These changes have been mentioned in two laws (of 4 April and 3 May 2003) and one royal decree (16 May 2003). An overview of the most important topics:
"• Incorporation of a Council Regulation (n° 3677/90), regulating substances that can be used to produce illicit substances (so-called “precursors”) into police authorities;
"• Drug use in group is not seen as punishable in se any more; instead, this will be changed to drug use in the presence of minors;
"• Cannabis gets a separate statute (defined as another “category”): the possession of an amount of cannabis, meant for personal use, by an adult (i.e. 18 years or older), without the presence of nuisance or problematic use will only lead to a registration by the police. In the case of nuisance, however, a punishment can be imposed of minimum three months up to one year of prison sentence and / or a fine of 1.000 to 100.000 euro (to be multiplied by 5, the revaluation factor)2.
"• Commerce, production, export and importation of substances regulated by the Narcotic Drug Act remain forbidden, and maintain their original punishments.al punishments."
Source:
Sandrine, Sleiman, "Belgium National Report on Drugs 2003," Scientific Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology Unit (Brussels, Belgium: European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction, October 2003), p. 19.
http://www.iph.fgov.be/EPIDEMIO/epien/birn/birn03.pdf
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| (2009 - heroin) "More than 60 per cent of drug treatment demand in Asia and Europe relate to opiates that are, especially heroin, the most deadly drugs. Deaths due to overdose are, in any single year, as high as 5,000-8,000 in Europe, and several times this amount in the Russian Federation alone."
Source:
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009, p. 7.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opium_Trade_2009_web.pdf
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